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DoublePulsar Backdoor

The Shadow Brokers advanced persistent threat group are well known for auctioning off stolen dumps of exploits, implants and tools reportedly obtained from the NSA.
Threat ID:
CC-1354
Category:
Exploit
Threat Severity:
Medium
Threat Vector:
Backdoor
Published:
25 April 2017 12:00 AM
Report a cyber attack: call 0300 303 5222 or email [email protected]

This content has been archived

This article no longer conforms to NHS Digital's standards for cyber alerts, and may contain outdated or inaccurate information. Use of this information contained in this page is at your own risk

Summary

The Shadow Brokers advanced persistent threat group are well known for auctioning off stolen dumps of exploits, implants and tools reportedly obtained from the NSA.

Affected platforms

The following platforms are known to be affected:

Microsoft Windows

  • Microsoft Windows - All versions

Threat details

The most recent dump includes an exploit known as EternalBlue and a backdoor known as DoublePulsar.

DoublePulsar is a backdoor tool that is pushed to a target machine with the ability to inject and run malicious code on the machine. This gives an actor the opportunity to further the attack by pushing any malicious code of their choosing, resulting in a complete compromise. The attack is extremely stealthy with system operators unlikely to notice the intrusion unless a mistake is made by the attackers. Therefore, many compromised systems are likely to remain infected for some time before the intrusion is discovered.

Threat updates

Date Update
28 Jun 2018

DoublePulsar has now been updated to work on Windows IoT (formerly Windows Embedded) operating system. This now exposes devices such as point-of-sale (PoS), ATM and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices to DoublePulsar.

Remediation steps

Type Step
The vulnerability exploited by DoublePulsar has been removed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010. Users should apply this patch immediately if they have not already done so.

Last edited: 17 February 2020 11:30 am